Militants destroy eight Nato vehicles near Peshawar

Eyewitnesses told Dawn about 70 people armed with sophisticated weapons had entered the Khatot-i-Amn Paramount Logistic Terminal at 3am and torched five containers, a well equipped auto-workshop, three power generators and snatched cash and cellular phone sets from the watchmen.

A clerk said that the armed men had also ransacked offices at the terminal and broken valuable items and smashed windowpanes.

After leaving the terminal they had entered another enclosure known as Sindh Frontier Goods Terminal located in the same area on the opposite side, torched eight Lorries and two containers.

The Lorries owners told Dawn that they were not transporting the supplies for Nato forces and at the time of occurrence no container was on board.

'We are usually transporting items of daily use from Peshawar to Afghanistan and never transported consignments for the allied forces,' the transporters said, saying that it was no service of Islam to torch vehicles of innocent people or kill them.

They said the fire tenders had reached the area with a delay of 30 minutes but they couldn’t save the vehicles.

The officials of Peshtakhara Police Station said that the attackers were about 35 in number, who had sprinkled some sort of petroleum products on the trucks and containers and torched them.

They said the militants had also opened fire in the air when they entered and left the terminals. They said police had reached the site and after an exchange of fire the militants escaped towards the agriculture farms of Landi Arbab locality.